The construction of outdoor walls that match or complement adjacent pavement blocks or pavers has been a challenge due to the differences in manufacturing procedures and materials used. The manufacturing processes used for pavers can be expensive or not adaptable for large wall blocks. Since many landscaping projects include wall blocks and pavers assembled to build retaining walls, benches, bench walls, privacy walls, fences, fireplaces, masonry fences, masonry fence posts and paved areas, the integrity of the design dictates that similar finishes, colors and shapes be used for stacked wall blocks and pavers.
Wall blocks are stacked vertically in horizontal rows where the front face of an earth retaining wall is usually the only visible surface. For bench walls, masonry fences and masonry fence posts, both side surfaces and often the end surfaces of these structures are visible.
To minimize costs of materials and manufacturing, some designs use a low cost core block with a decorative higher cost fascia block mounted on the visible surfaces of the core blocks. The core blocks and fascia blocks are interlocked together with various connectors or molded dove-tailed tongue and groove elements. Examples are described in Canadian Patent 2244348 and US Patent Application Publication 2008/0134615. Accuracy of molding the concrete blocks and closely fitting tongue and groove elements is an impediment to manufacturing. Concrete shrinkage and slump after the molds are removed result in significant dimensional variations in the opposite direction of mold removal. Such dimensional variations create not only a poor visual appearance but make for installation difficulties as well.
There remains a demand for an economical easily constructed dual block wall system that ensures accurate assembly, cost efficiency, design flexibility, and matching of the exposed wall blocks with pavers.
Features that distinguish the present invention from the background art will be apparent from review of the disclosure, drawings and description of the invention presented below.